September 2023
September was an insane month. It felt like it never stopped. It’s a tough month for me as it marks the 1 year anniversary of a personal event in my life, and so I went into the month trying to take things slowly. That never actually happened. I went to see TWICE live, after listening to them for 7 YEARS. I got Covid for the first time and it knocked me out. I completed the final training course for work, which also meant I got to catch up with friends. I went to Copenhagen with my sisters, ate my weights worth in pastries and realised how expensive everything in Denmark is…. I spent far too much money and came back to England wishing my grandparents had immigrated to Europe instead of England… But the additional time off and constant travelling gave me plenty of time to read :-)
And as always, thank you to my friends for reading. If you’re not a friend I’ve harassed into reading, thank you even more for reading when you’re not obliged to and thank you for checking this blog even when I haven’t posted it on Instagram x
Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton
I told a bookseller I loved books sprawling over generations, rich with history, following the same characters through life. This was their recommendation.
I found this book interesting… sort of. We meet Lily, who is kind of… stunted in life. She receives a mysterious letter about an unexpected inheritance. Her mother died when she was younger and she has little memory of her mother’s death; only really what her older sister, Maya has told her. In an out of character moment, she flies to Hong Kong to find out as much as she can about her mother, believing the mysterious inheritance and her mother’s death to be related.
The concept is interesting, but I found the writing too elementary to be as engaging as I wanted. The plot was actually very good, and I didn’t expect the ending. I felt a lot for the deceased mother. But the writing let me down. Whilst the concept and plots were interesting, things felt unexplored and unfinished. I think reading this when I was younger would’ve served me better, but as my reading habits stand now, this didn’t jump out at me.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
How To Love Your Daughter by Hila Blum
I loved this! This story exists in a set of characters, the main three being: mother, Yoella, father, daughter, Leah.
The book is entirely told through the perspective of the mother. We learn about her own experiences growing up, her relationship with her husband, but of most importance: her love for her daughter. Blum’s writing is beautiful. She is exceptional at characterising emotions, describing both the complexities and simple aspects of unconditional love. I’m not a mother, and who knows what my future holds, but I can only assume from the depth of the writing that the love the mother feels for Leah is what maternal love is like. And whilst Blum writes beautifully about emotions, she does so in a way that makes the mother entirely unlikeable. She is obsessed with her daughter! But she loves her so much. But is this love completely too much for Leah?
It’s a book about love, that’s for sure, and the way we can all love differently. It’s about different perspectives and perceptions of actions. It’s about wanting to do everything for your child and that being too much for them. It’s about wanting to do your best as a parent, and how that can be such an all encompassing feeling.
I * did * feel that the ending left a lot unsaid. I love a neat ending, with everything nicely tied up. Blum did not deliver that. But I think the excellent writing (and god, is this excellent writing!) more than made up for this.
Rating: ★★★★★
In The Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life edited by Juliet Annan
Since reading My Life in France by Julia Child, I’ve been obsessed with food writing (I think that might be a lie - A Half Baked Life by Olivia Potts, read in 2020). I am not a cook, I hate cooking, I find it immensely stressful but I recognise the therapeutic nature of cooking, the community of cooking, the purposefulness of cooking. And so, I love to read about it.
I loved these essays. There’s something so warm and compelling and wise about them. I love reading from the perspective of someone who has lived long enough to reflect on the experience they’re writing about; they write with a deeper understanding of what their experience meant to them.
I finished this in under 24 hours, again. It’s the kind of easy, fun writing that lets you race through without taking up too much of your brain - but that does not take away from the quality of the essays. :)
Rating: ★★★★★
The Farmers Wife by Helen Rebanks
This is another food book. Rebanks talks us through her life, first as as a child, the daughter of a farmer, and then as a teenager, the daughter of a farmer, and then as a wife, of a farmer, and then a mother. She writes with a surprising amount of detail about her experiences, and you love her for her determination, hard work and uplifting attitude. The book is also littered with recipes, either recipes she has developed herself or recipes passed through her family. They’re helpfully categorised with ideas for things like: lunches, easy dinners, reflecting the stage of life she’s at - for example, easy dinners falls under the period of time where Rebanks became a new, first time mother.
I think the writing of this book is fun, the concept is fun, I love having recipes scattered across pages and I love life writing. However, I found, especially towards the end, I had little sympathy for Rebanks. I feel bad for saying this because this is a real person, who has experienced real things and I can only comment on the way those things have been presented to me. I found myself disagreeing with her perspective. But that doesn’t really take away from the book. You don’t need to love the author in order to appreciate their writing.
Rating: ★★★★☆